Nineteen year old Leana and her two children are living with a friend's family for now, until she gets an apartment of her own. Leana doesn't want people to know she's homeless, which is why she didn't want us to take a picture of her face.

Leana and her three siblings grew up in their grandmother’s two-bedroom house. By the time she was 18, Leana had one child, and was pregnant with her second.

As a result she missed a lot of class because, she says, “I’d be running around a lot, so I’d be missing school, or stuff would be happening with the baby sitter. Stuff like that, so I’d miss a lot of days of school.”

The house wasn’t big enough for everyone, and her grandmother was getting too old to care for all of them.

Leana decided to move into a homeless shelter.

She asked us not to use her last name because of the stigma of homelessness.

She says the homeless shelter was a “different” experience, one filled with “nasty food, nasty people, and stuff like that.”

Two months later, Leana moved out.

“I’d never been on my own. It was hard. I couldn’t stay in the shelter,” she says.

These days, she’s living with a friend’s family in what homeless advocates call “doubling up,” and she’s still in school.

In fact, she just took her cap and gown graduation pictures. She’ll be the first in her family to earn a high school degree.

Leana made it through school with the help of Project ACT, the homeless student program at Cleveland schools.

Ida Lieszkovszky / StateImpact Ohio

Dr. Marcia Zashin is the homeless liaison for Cleveland schools, where she also started ProjectACT to help homeless youth while they're in school.

Marcia Zashin is the director of Project ACT and the homeless liaison for the district, which has about 2,500 homeless students.

Zashin says many of these kids miss classes, switch schools a lot, or simply drop out.

“Our families move from place to place,” she explains. “They may stay with one family for a few weeks and then that family really needs them to move on so then they’ll go and stay with another family. They’re very transient.”

Which is why Cleveland schools allows homeless students to stay in their school of origin, regardless of where their family moves in the district.

Eleven-year-old Iman Mohammed’s family recently lost their house in foreclosure. They’ve been living in a shelter, but Iman says she doesn’t really miss the house.

Her mom, Shatibah says she was relieved to find out Iman would be able to stay in her original school – Northeast Ohio College Preparatory – a charter school in Cleveland.

Ida Lieszkovszky / StateImpact Ohio

Eleven-year old Iman and her mom, Shatibah Mohammed lost their house in foreclosure. They're living in a shelter now, and hope to move into a new house this year.

Shatibah says, “sometimes children don’t take very likely to change, and sometime change isn’t very good for kids depending on their maturity and their understanding.”

The tough economy and foreclosures have contributed to the sudden increase in homeless students.

The Ohio Department of Education estimates there were close to 12,000 homeless students in 2006. Last year, there were nearly 22,000.

But those are just estimates. Homeless students are difficult to keep track of.

For example, Warren City Schools has the fifth highest poverty rate in the state, but lists only one student as homeless. That’s because the district does not count doubled up students as homeless.

That can get very confusing for homeless youth, says Angela Lariviere, a youth advocacy leader at the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.

She says the Department of Education counts doubled up students like Leana as homeless, but other federal departments - Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services – do not.

“Within each of those agencies there are different rules and requirements for eligibility, and youth who think that they’re eligible for one are not and they may not realize if they’re eligible for another,” Lariviere says.

“That’s where the frustration and the confusion come in. That’s where they stop asking for help.”

Lariviere says students living with friends or family should count, because “that isn’t stability. I mean you’re never know where you’re going to sleep every night.”

Ida Lieszkovszky / StateImpact Ohio

Cleveland students participate in a meeting of ProjectACT. Here, they all read a discuss a book together.

Glennville High School sophomore Tyree has lived doubled up for the last few years. His single mother couldn’t support him and his nine siblings alone. He used to live with his cousin’s family, but it was overcrowded and there were frequent arguments. Now he lives with his stepfather, and says he’s doing well – better than he did at his last school.

Tyree is glad he’s improved his grades recently.

“When I was at John Adams it was hard for me to get them up because I was going through an emotional stage, but now I got it together because I’ve got people that want to be involved with me so I think it’s better now that I got older,” he says.

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About StateImpact Ohio

StateImpact Ohio is a collaboration among WCPN, WKSU and WOSU. Reporters Amy Hansen and Mark Urycki travel the state to report on the state of education in Ohio, where it’s heading, and how it affects you. Read their reports on this site and listen to them on public radio stations across Ohio.